Burn

32

As the motorcycle pulled alongside the Olds with a roar like continuous thunder, Carver saw that it was a Harley-Davidson and had been crudely painted a lusterless gray. He had no time to take anything else in. The Harley shot even with the left front fender, then veered toward it.

It all happened so fast that Carver instinctively jerked the steering wheel to the right. The Olds’s front tire jumped the curb, then wobbled back into the gutter, throwing the car out of control. The steering wheel came alive and writhed from his slippery grip, one of its cross-braces striking his thumb painfully. Tires squealed as the car swerved and rocked violently from side to side. His foot came off the accelerator, his body jerking with the force of the wild motion.

Finally he managed to regain his hold on the wheel. He wrestled it so that the car’s course straightened and its rocking was less extreme.

When the Olds’s speed had dropped somewhat, he jammed his foot down hard on the brake pedal. It responded sluggishly and he knew the engine had died and knocked out the power steering and brakes. The steering wheel’s stiffness confirmed this. Carver braced his back against the seat and shoved his foot down on the pedal with all his strength, and gradually the car slowed to a halt.

The Harley had stopped about a hundred feet down the street. Before Carver could reach forward and try to restart the engine, the huge cyclist had dismounted, removed his helmet with its tinted plexiglass face guard, and was lumbering toward the car.

As Carver was desperately twisting the key and the starter was futilely grinding, Achilles Jones, outfitted as before in dirt-encrusted jeans and filthy, wool-lined leather vest, casually swung the helmet at the driver’s-side window and smashed the glass. Carver’s hand slipped from the ignition key as he jerked his body to the side to avoid the giant’s grasp. A massive hand closed on his shirt, as his own hand gripped his cane, which had been leaning against the seat. He turned and saw the same mindless smile he’d seen in his office, the same pale blue eyes with the frightening void behind them.

He jabbed the tip of the cane into one of the eyes. The big man, whose actions were cramped by the window frame and what was left of the glass, couldn’t fend off the cane. Or a second, more accurate jab. He released Carver’s shirt and backed away a step.

As he stood there rubbing his eyes, Carver drove the tip of the cane hard into his throat. The giant gagged and leaped back out of his reach.

It gave Carver time to get the Olds started.

When Jones heard the sound of the engine turning over, he came at the car again immediately. But blindly this time. He bounced hard off the door as Carver jammed the accelerator down and the tires screamed and propelled the Olds forward with all the primitive power of its V-8 engine.

Carver glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Jones mounting his motorcycle, shaking his head from side to side to try to clear his mind and vision.

The Olds might have been able to outrun the Harley, but a large yellow Hertz rental truck entered the intersection directly in its path. Carver stomped hard on the brakes. The Olds’s hood dipped and it screeched sideways in the street.

As Achilles Jones was larger than Carver, so the Olds was larger than the Harley. The dusk-colored bike slammed into the side of the car just behind the door, rocking it sideways. Carver heard something scrape across the canvas top, and he turned to see Achilles Jones land hard on his back in the street after the impact had flung him over the car. He hit so hard that dust flew.

The Hertz truck had stopped and two husky men climbed down from the cab. They began walking toward Jones and the wrecked Harley. Attracted by the eeek! of tires and the sound of the collision, people began to appear on the sidewalk.

Jones struggled up to his full height, and the men who’d been approaching to help him suddenly stopped and stood still, staring. Sirens began wailing frantic loops of sound, drawing nearer.

Limping heavily, Achilles Jones ran from the street and between two buildings.

Carver watched him, admiring his combination of size and speed despite his apparently injured leg. With time to think, it occurred to him that Jones might hold the key to understanding what really was going on between Brant and Marla Cloy. If Carver could discover who’d hired him to stymie the investigation, everything else might come clear. And Jones was hurt, maybe badly, from the accident. He could be controlled at least until the police reached the scene.

Maybe.

Ignoring the strong smell of gasoline that warned of possible fire, Carver twisted the ignition key and got the Olds started again. One of the men from the Hertz truck was yelling at him, but he couldn’t understand what he was saying and didn’t care. He backed the Olds away from the wrecked Harley, frantically maneuvering until it was pointed in the direction he’d just come from, then accelerated down the street, trying to get around the block in time to intercept Jones. If he had the chance, he wouldn’t hesitate to knock the giant down with the car. He had no doubt that Jones had intended to kill him.

He jounced the Olds over the curb, rounding the corner and speeding to the next intersection so he could peer up the street.

Achilles Jones was nowhere in sight.

Carver hit the accelerator and the Olds roared up the street as he swiveled his head to glance from side to side, like a fighter pilot in enemy skies. He no longer smelled gasoline, so the fuel must have leaked from the motorcycle and not the Olds. Several pedestrians stared at him, but they were half the size of the man he was seeking.

The siren was much louder now and had been joined by another, but Carver knew that by the time he explained what had happened and talked the uniforms into searching for Jones, it would be too late.

In frustration, he made a right turn and drove down the next block. He was aware now of a rhythmic scuffing sound as the car gained speed, then the acrid scent of burning rubber; the big Harley must have bent the Olds’s fender in so that the tire was rubbing.

He circled the block twice, slowly enough so that he no longer heard the scraping sound, before conceding that Jones had somehow disappeared.

A part of him couldn’t help feeling relieved.

His heart was racing faster than the car’s backed-off engine, and his hands were trembling as he returned to the scene of the accident.